Seussical Week 9: The evolution of the tree

 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Yeah, I'm starting with that again. 

Last week we were so busy. We had our first full week of school and it was the last week of Seussical rehearsals before Tech Week. Plus all the other things. 

We are going to try to go through this with a daily recap. I want to do this so you can see the tree evolve over the week. (That will make sense in a minute.) But I might get lost in the middle. We'll see how it goes. 

This will cover from Monday August 24 to Sunday August 30

Monday started off in an interesting way. I was in my office at work when one of our long time clients came up to my doorway and said, "Hey I thought you'd want to know, there's like a lot of water on the women's restroom floor."

So I hurried down the hall and looked in the bathroom there was like and inch and a half of water covering the floor of two of the stalls into the walkway area. 

My boss came and looked at it, but since that client was here to see him he went into the session with her and I was in charge of mopping up the water. We have a "servant leadership" type model at work so sometimes the highest ranking people are the people mopping the floor. So I didn't mind being in charge of it. Also it was just water leaking from somewhere. It wasn't sewage. 

But mopping very quickly turned out to be the wrong idea. Our little baby mop was not made for this much water. I ended up finding our snow shovel and just scooping up the water and dumping it into a garbage can. That got up most of the water and then I was able to mop up the remainder. 

Fortunately the leak didn't seem to be very big. So we just shut off the water in the stall that had the leak and called a plumber to look at it later. 

When I did make it back to my desk I got a lot of work done. 

That evening we had rehearsal for Seussical. Things were starting to get more real. Ellie, the lady in charge of props had brought in lots of props. 

We started out rehearsing the end song, "Green Eggs and Ham" again. It was so much more fun to do at 7:00 PM rather than learning it at 9:30. We also practiced our bows. I always think its interesting that even those are carefully thought out. 

Then we ran through the whole show. When that was over Nate read us his notes and then we were FREE. 

At home Brandon had put the "tree" together. He and our friend Cort had designed the tree's frame at Cort's welding shop. Cort had welded it and Brandon had picked it up. It was in two pieces. The tree trunk with stair treads and a platform. Brandon had bolted the tree trunk to the platform. He'd also put wheels on the bottom. 

Charlotte and Lydia immediately started goofing off with it. The tree was very bouncy and everything seemed really sketchy. But Brandon knew how to make it more stable.   

The basic idea was that it needed to look flimsy, and yet be strong enough to hold an elephant. We were on our way there. 

Tuesday Brandon took the day off of work to work on the tree and a few other things. He put on a railing and also built a board look like a branch to prop the tree up. By the time he was done it was much more stable. 

I was back to my old schedule with Wednesday's off so I had the morning off of work and then went to work in the afternoon. In the morning I had another ART therapy session. That was really good. 

And work was good too.

Charlotte and Lydia came home from school and started working on covering the tree with brown paper grocery bags, making the nest from more brown paper - the packing paper kind, and also making leaves out of paste board that our friend Tom gave us. They were sad to stop when it was time for rehearsal.

That night at rehearsal they went over some scenes at the beginning and then we did a full run through starting around 7:30. 

We'd brought it in the bathtub and when the twins brought it out during it's scene someone was like "OH LOOK AT THAT BATHTUB."  Later in the scene all the kids 12 and under did their fish dance. They all had the fish that Ellie had made. This cute was already super adorable, but with the fish it made everything like 1000 times cuter. The audience is going to die of cuteness overload. 

At the end of Act 1 we stopped so Nate could give us his notes before going off to an appointment he had upstairs. (He's playing Olaf in Frozen in December and I think he was getting his puppet costume fit or something.)  While he was giving the notes he was sitting on the edge of the stage. Brandon and Jared walked onto the stage behind him carrying the helicopter. Everyone clapped and cheered. Jared had come and picked it up in his truck. It was great to finally have it on stage. 

Another fun moment was during Act 2 when Gertrude sings "All for You." Lydia was sitting in a big over stuffed chair that was back stage. Charlotte was in her lap and was lip-syncing the song to Lydia. It was cute to see them doing that together. 

Wednesday started off with a doctors appointment for Veronica. She'd asked to go back on some medicine for her ADHD. She wanted help focusing on school. So we had an appointment with her pediatrician to get that started again. 

I had the day off and I went over to Jerome to a place that does clothing sales for $1. Every Wednesday in August they've done a thing where you get a bag full of clothes for $20. So I went to that. 

We've been looking for pants for Veronica's costume and I was happy to find some. Here's Veronica doing a fit check after school. 

I got a lot of other good clothes too. 

I picked Derrick up early from school because he had an appointment to fix his chipped tooth. It had chipped in like 2021 and that filling had held on all these years before meeting its end with a piece of crystal candy that Brandon brought back from Minnesota. So we were getting the filling put back on. 

The appointment went well, but Derrick had been in a weird mood all week. He was refusing to participate in his gym class. He had a lot of reasons, but the main reason just seemed to be that it was new and he hated it. His Special Ed teacher and I were trying all sorts of things. But Derrick just wasn't interested. 

After school Brandon took Derrick with him to Norco to buy welding supplies for Derrick and Charlotte and to get new gloves for Lydia. Brandon somehow got through to Derrick. When Derrick came home he came right up to me and said, "Okay Mom. Tomorrow I'm going to wear my tennis shoes and go to gym."  And guess what?  He DID!  The goal was really just for him to go to gym, he didn't even have to participate. But on Thursday he went AND played wiffle ball. It hasn't been an issue since. 

And here is Derrick putting on his welding coveralls jacket. 

I had a bunch of ripe tomatoes so I made sure to get all of those picked. 

At the theatre that night we again started out with some scenes. The Who's weren't in those scenes so we went to the lobby and worked on some things in our Here on Who dance. That was fun. 

While we finishing that Brandon and Derrick arrived with "The box." They'd tied it to the roof of the Pilot and drove it to the theatre. This box is for the beginning of the play. It's on the stage the whole time the audience is getting in their seats. Then as the show starts the Cat in the Hat jumps out of it. Rachel has to be in there for 30 minutes just sitting and waiting. I told Brandon, "You have to make that box comfortable. She sings and dances as soon as she's out of that box. She can't be all crammed in there for 30 minutes. So he made the box big and even put a seat in it. 

It's good he brought it in because then we had to do 15 minutes of rehearsal to figure out how to get it off the stage during the opening number with the whole cast on the stage. Charlotte and Lydia are responsible for carrying it off. Brandon later added wheels so it is easier to move.

Last time Derrick was at the theatre he'd been in a bad mood so we were trying to get him to like the theatre again. Lydia took him back stage and showed him all the props. He liked that.  

Then he and Brandon left. They've started a little tradition of watching movies and drinking rootbeer. So they did that. Young Mens that night was another boating activity - which would have been fun, but both of them were pretty tired. So they just did their own thing that night. 

Laura and Cameron started bringing down the costumes from the second floor. They laid them out on the chairs. That was fun to see. 

Ellie hadn't been at the rehearsal for the fish dance on Tuesday. I'd messaged her and told her how cute the scene was. She wanted to know if anyone took pictures. I was like, "Oh I was so mesmerized I didn't even think about pictures!"  So I took some on Wednesday night for her. But my phone washed out the colors. 

Since we'd had kind of a late start we didn't make it all the way through the show. We stopped after Solla Sollew. Nate started going over notes with us and then he and Danica started talking about some things to know for Tech Week. I was like, "Why are they telling this all to us now. We still have one more rehearsal tomorrow."

And then Nate said, "We can tell you are all tired. We think the best thing for this cast right now is rest. So we are giving you the night off tomorrow."

This was the BEST news. I mean I love rehearsal, but we were all tired. Charlotte and Veronica had terrible coughs that all the cough syrup and cough drops weren't helping at all. I imagined the coughs would go away with a few nights of good sleep. (I was wrong, but it was a nice dream.)

So we just had a few things to do that evening before we could leave. We took our costumes from the chairs down to the green room and hung them on racks. And then we helped put props up in the storage areas. There were two events that weekend and we didn't want our props in the way. (Or getting messed with.)

Thursday I had work and then I went grocery shopping. I came home a little before all the kids did. When they came home they helped put away all the non-perishable stuff that I'd left on the table. 

Charlotte and Lydia put the finishing touches on the tree. 

It was so cool how the nest appeared to be held up by nothing. 

And that evening we just relaxed. I read more Harry Potter 5 to Veronica. It was so nice to not have to be anywhere. 

On Friday I was at work for a while. I wanted to get as caught up as possible before tech week. We recently had a social work student get licensed so I was working on her application for insurance credentialling. I HATE this part of my job. But a like it a lit bit because it is a really cool thing when the students can start getting paid for the work they do. I like that part. 

At home we did more relaxing. The weather was dropping into the 70s for the weekend so I'd bought everything for smores. We had a fire and cooked hot dogs for dinner and then had smores. We all had a fun time talking around the fire. It was some good family time before Tech week stresses us all out.  

On Saturday we slept in a little bit. Brandon finished up the last of the things he needed to make for the set. I took Derrick over to my friend Nicole's so he could mow her lawn. She'd out of town, but she'd already given me the money to pay Derrick. So as soon as he was done I gave him the money. 

While he was moving the lawn I went over to a yard sale a few houses down. I found a big blue and while rug. When we'd expanded the lego area last week I'd thrown away the scraps of carpet that had been in that area. They had been nice when my friend Kami gave them to us. But Marcia had peed on them a lot over the years. So I just threw them away. I'd been planning to check DI for a rug. But the one at the yard sale was perfect and I bought it for $9. 

Veronica spent a lot of time organizing the lego instructions. (Or constructions as the kids say because they watch a lot of British people on Youtube.)

 

At 2:00 Brandon and I went to the Orpheum for a wedding. It was for a lady name Catharine. I don't know her very well, but Brandon was in Guys and Dolls with her. 

The wedding was really sweet. And they had the Orpheum decorated really well. We stayed for a little bit after the ceremony, but we didn't hang around for cake or dancing. Instead we went down the street to O'Duncan's. We were celebrating the 20th anniversary of meeting each other. We met on September 2, 2006. But September 2, 2026 is during tech week. So we were celebrating early. 

We ordered our food and took a picture together. And then our friends Tim and Rebekkah came in. We invited them to sit with us. We had a really fun time talking together. 

My sandwich arrived and it was HUGE. I loved it, but I had not been planning to eat this with an audience. It was so messy! 

We came back home and I watched Poseidon with Derrick. This was the modern remake of The Poseidon Adventure. It was really good, but also really scary at some parts. 

Charlotte's cough was still not better so at 6:00 I took her to Instacare to see if we could get some medicine or something. The PA wrote a prescription for antibiotics which is always a victory as a mom. One reason I hadn't taken her in earlier is because I feel like doctors LOVE to minimize coughs. They'll be like, "Oh well it can take 3 weeks for a cough to clear." or, "Well no cough medicine is really effective."  It's so frustrating. 

But by this point she had been coughing for about 10 days AND had ear pain so I figured that might count for something. And it did!  My one regret is we waited until after 6:00 to go. That meant the pharmacies were closed and I couldn't get the prescription filled until the next day. But at least we had antibiotics coming. 

Back at home I went outside and watered for a while. Here are some of my flowers. 

This is the pathway right now. 

Look a praying mantis. 

And here are Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica playing around with the tree. 

It's so fun looking!

Sunday was a crazy busy day. We were able to sleep in a little bit. But things were hopping by 10:00. It was load in day for Seussical. All the remaining set pieces would be leaving our garage and going to the theatre. Brandon would put together the last few things. Other cast members were coming to help with some painting. Other's were working on costumes. Our Horton and our Mazey would be practicing going up and down the tree. It was a BIG day. 

I started out with a trip to Smiths. I picked up Charlotte's prescription (and Veronica's because I hadn't made it there yet.) and then I bought big french bread and meat and cheese to make sandwiches. I also bought some cookies, small oranges, and bottled water. We were going to be at the theatre for a while and I wanted to make sure that people had food options while we were there. 

I came back home and put together the sandwiches. Jared showed up with his truck and he and Brandon and the kids loaded up the tree and the panels. 

Here's the tree in the truck. 

Brandon and Lydia went to the Orpheum and helped unload there. I brought Charlotte and Veronica along about 15 minutes later. 

Here's the tree on stage. It suddenly looked so small. That's Casey in the back painting the platforms. 

Some of the leaves ripped on the drive over so I took Charlotte home so we could get more paste board. Then we came back and she made the replacement leaves. You can see people working to cover "The box" with fabric in the background. 

Here's the food. Danica brought chocolate milk and donuts. My things are toward the back. I'm glad I bought stuff because there were a lot of little kids running around and they ate a lot of my stuff. 

Andrea and her family arrived. Her husband Jeremy was there too. I was like, "Hey Brandon, have you met Jeremy yet?"  So I introduced them to each other. Less than 5 minutes later Brandon was like, "Hey we are going to Lowes. And off they went like best friends. Jeremy was Brandon's helper for like the next three hours. He helped him get the panels put together. (Which was not a small job.)

I didn't really have a job. I joked I was in charge of moral. But I did help Danica figure out some prop stuff. I also drove back and forth a lot. 

First was the trip home to get more paste board. 

Then it was a trip to take Veronica home. She'd helped with some small things, then goofed off with the other little kids, and then got bored. I'd told Derrick that we'd be home around 1:00. It was 1:10 and we didn't seem close to done so I decided that Veronica could go home and hang out with him. 

A little after I got back from that trip I noticed that Charlotte and Lydia were sitting down doing nothing. They had finished everything they needed to do with the tree. I was like, "Hey you two have used up all your child labor hours for the day. It's time to get you home."  So I took them home.  

I came back just as Brandon and Jeremy were putting together the panels. They were going up in a triangle shape. Brandon had built a nice base for them on wheels. As the scene changed the panels would rotate. He needed people to hold everything while he used his nail gun to keep everything in place. So I helped hold panels. 

Then I noticed that the edges where each panel met looked kind of crappy because the wood was just raw and unpainted. So even though I swore that I did not want a painting job I ended up painting all the corners on the panels black. Rachel was helping me for a minute. She was like, "How are you doing it so fast." I told her, "I HATE it and I want it to be over!"

Brandon finished putting together the second panel triangle and I painted the corners on that one and then I was like, "Oh my gosh! These are DONE!" 

And really most of the set was done. There was still some platform painting going on, but all the big pieces were made and assembled and in place. 

Weeks and weeks and weeks ago I'd made the goal that there would be no panic set building going on during tech week. That goal might have caused a little more tension in my marriage that I'd like, but here we were and everything was done before Tech Week. We'd done it!

I took this picture and my phone washed everything out, but behind all that wash out is what success looks like. 

I helped Brandon take a few things to the car. Then I went home. He came home about 30 minutes after me. 

We had orange chicken for dinner and then we watched 27 Dresses. I think that might be one of my favorite romantic comedies. 

And then everyone went to be at a decent time. 

And now we are in Tech week. We have to be at the theatre at 5:30 every night. We will stay until 10:00. (Thankfully they have promised to make sure we are out of there at 10:00 no matter what because there are so many kids in the cast.)  

On Monday they are focusing on microphones. We'll also do what is called a Cue to Cue rehearsal where there will be a lot of starts and stops and redos. 

On Tuesday we will add makeup.

On Wednesday we will add costumes. 

On Thursday we will do a full dress rehearsal. 

And on Friday we have our first real show. Followed by one on Saturday. 

And then on Sunday and Monday we are doing nothing. NOTHING. 

Thanks for reading. 

School started and Suessical Week 8

 AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I'm feeling very behind right now. I know I'm not that much behind, but a lot happened last week and a lot happened this week and a lot is going to happen next week. 

In order to stay caught up as much as possible this post will be formatted a little differently. We aren't going to go by day. We are going to go by topic. 

Last three days of Summer Vacation

Our school district seems to alternate between starting the school year on a Monday or starting it on a Wednesday. I prefer the Wednesday start because the week seems very long when we start on a Monday. This year they decided to do a Thursday start. So that meant we had three days of summer vacation. 

We didn't have much going on those last three days. The kids watched A LOT of the Outdoor Boys youtube channel. They've seen All the episodes before, but they wanted to watch them again I guess. 

On Tuesday it was my last full day off with the kids home. I wanted us to do a project together. The kids have been saying they are running out of storage space for their legos. They are ALSO creeped out by my porcelain dolls that I keep in the display case near their lego area. 

So we decided that it was time to move some of the legos into the display case. I was okay putting my dolls in a box because I never really think about them anyway. 

Here are the before pictures. The stuff in the display cases had been there for years and we didn't pay much attention to it. 

And the lego area was just really chaotic with lots of legos everywhere. I couldn't reach my book cases in the back so they were really disorganized looking too. 

And here are the after pictures. Now the display case has legos on each shelf. (We still need to replace the lights so everything will be more visible.)

We also moved the lego tables out a little bit more which meant there was more room for the kids to work AND I could reach my book cases. I was able to get in and put my books away nicely. We all agree this is much better. 

I spent a lot of time getting things ready for school. I ordered Veronica's school supplies online on Walmart's website. I also ordered new underwear for all the kids. It's just too awkward to have underwear conversations at the store. It works better to do it at home. Plus I have my purchase history from the year before so I just pull that up, check with the kids that they still like that underwear, and then order more. 

The shoes the girls are wearing in the play will be their school shoes. So for now they are just wearing their sandals to school. And no one really needs new clothes so I didn't have to worry about that yet. 

I'd thought about doing some sort of last days of summer activity. But we were so busy with Seussical that there wasn't much time or energy left for anything else. So summer vacation just kind of petered out. 

There was also kind of a false sense of security with that Thursday start because I wasn't quite as ready for Thursday as I might have been for another day. On Wednesday morning I remembered we probably should make sure the kids had clean clothes and on Wednesday night I realized that Derrick and Veronica hadn't showered. And there might have been a last minute scramble to buy lunch food. But it all worked out. 

First day of school

The first day of school was Thursday August 20th. I had been waking the kids up around 8:00 every day for the past few days so getting up earlier wasn't too hard for them. 

Charlotte, Lydia, and Derrick were all leaving at 7:40 for school that started at 8:00. I made them take a picture together before they left. We have three high schoolers this year. 

Lydia drove them all to school in the grey van. (The one with over 300,000 miles on it.) I was so happy that I didn't have to take them. 

Then Veronica and I were like, "Now what?"  She'd got up early to take a shower and so she was already ready. We didn't have to leave until 8:20. It felt like a really long time to wait - especially with just one kid. Last year we'd always HAD to leave the house right at 8:15. I'd drive her to her middle school and she HAD to get out of the car by 8:22 because if I left her school any later I wouldn't be able to get Derrick dropped off at his school by 8:40. 

But this year I DON'T have to drive Derrick across town. Hallelujah!  Veronica's the only kid I have to drive anywhere. I was able to drop her off and then drive back home! That felt great. 

Here's her back to school picture.

I spent the morning watering my grass and my garden and taking care of a few little billing things for Ivan. Then I went to work at Aspen Grove. After that I went grocery shopping. 

And then I was home at 3:30 so I could be available when the kids got home. Last year I discovered that it's important to just plant myself on the couch for half an hour and be available to sign things, and talk about how the day went. 

So as the high school kids walked in I was there for all the syllabuses that their teachers had sent home. In high school we don't get the supply list until the first day so I also started making a list of all the things I would need to buy. (I did a Walmart run on Friday and bought some things in person and the rest online.) 

Veronica was home around 4:00 and I signed a lot of her stuff too. 

Everyone had a pretty good first day. This year Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica are all at the same schools they were last year so we didn't have a lot of first day jitters from them. Derrick is at a new school, but he's feeling good about it because his sisters are there. So overall this start of the year was a lot less emotionally charged than last year when the three girls were all at new schools. 

The second day of school went well too. It was a really good start. 

Seussical

On Monday August 17th our stage manager Danica sent out a message reminding everyone that we had TWO weeks before Tech week. I knew that. But seeing it in print made it seem more real. 

We were on the stage for all the rehearsals all week. Everyone was getting more confident with where to stand and everything. 

We did all of Act 1 on Monday and all of Act 2 on Tuesday and then we did the whole show on Wednesday.

On Wednesday night after we'd done the whole show we were told that we'd spend the last 30 minutes learning the dance that we would do for the bows. The bows for this show are a little different than normal. The whole cast comes out and sings, "Green Eggs and Ham" and then we do our bows. Someone decided that instead of just standing on the stage and singing we should have a little dance. It's really high energy and fun, but it was NOT fun to learn that dance at 9:30 at night. 

I told someone, "My dopamine ran out 40 minutes ago." It was a slog to learn everything. What's funny is that the next Monday we went over that dance at 7:00 and it was delightful. 

On Thursday we had what was called the Costume Parade. Everyone put on their costume and then came on stage one at a time. Laura was on stage taking notes about things to fix, what was still missing, things she needed to add, etc. It was so fun to see everyone in their costumes. Here are me and the girls sitting in the audience in our costumes.

That was over around 8:30 and then we did the Sitzprobe rehearsal. This is where we sing through the whole show without worrying about chorography or props or anything. When we did this for Cinderella we'd been upstairs in the second floor classroom. This time I expected to be sitting in the chairs in the theatre. But they asked us to all go on stage and sing. 

That was all fine and dandy, but remember this day was ALSO the first day of school. The kids were tired, the school teachers and staff in the show were tired, and the moms were tired. So it wasn't exactly fun to stand on the stage and sing. Everyone was sitting as much as they possibly could back stage. 

After I was done with "Here on Who" I went back stage and found Kerri sitting with her back to the very back wall. I sat down with her and we talked about how tired we were. Kerri is the attendance secretary at the middle school. Every day is busy for her, but the first day is especially busy. She was so tired. I was sorry she was tired, but for some reason that back stage conversation with us sitting with our backs to the brick wall is one of my favorite memories from the week. I liked sitting and talking with my friend. 

On Friday I went to Walmart and bought make up for the show. They are providing some makeup for us, but it's basically one pallet that all 5 Who women and 5 Who children will share. I didn't like the logistics of trying sharing one pallet so I just bought my own stuff. What I couldn't find at Walmart I ordered online. 

Between Back to School Shopping and Seussical shopping this has been an expensive month. 

Ward Party

Brandon had his hands full this week with 1. His last CSI class for about a month, 2. Working on the set. And 3. Getting things together for our annual ward Picnic/BBQ/Party. 

In previous years we've held this at a pavilion owned by another stake. That's always been a mostly okay situation, but we've always had so much drama trying to get keys for the building so people can use the bathroom. This year that building is getting remodeled and so bathrooms wouldn't even be an option. And so Brandon took that opportunity to move the whole thing to a park with a pavilion AND bathrooms. 

He took care of getting everything reserved. He also coordinated with other Elders Quorum activity members for drink coolers, cooked pulled pork, serving tables, fliers, and a bunch of other little things. 

The party was on Saturday and so he spent Saturday morning working on set stuff and then switched to Party Mode in the afternoon. He had a big load of stuff to take to the park around 3:00. I volunteered to go with him and help him unload and then just sit with the stuff while he got the second load ready. 

So at 3:00 we took that over and then I just chilled out at the park and read a book for an hour. It was great.

The weather made it even better. A big thunder storm rolled in around 3:30 and dumped a ton of rain. Then it stopped raining and moved on. But the air was so much cooler after that storm. Some people had worried that we'd need to cancel, but it actually was such a blessing. 

Brandon brought the second load around 4:00 and other people showed up to help set up. The party officially started at 5:00. It was mostly an eat and talk event, but there were some games to keep kids entertained. Joe brought a tug of war rope and lots of people liked that. Jeff brought a little kiddy pool full of bubble liquid and lots of bubble toys. Derrick played with that for a long time. He was able to get really big bubbles with a special wand. 

Around 7:30 we started cleaning up. Charlotte, Lydia, and Veronica had drove home earlier and Derrick had walked home when he got bored of the bubbles. So Brandon and I were the only ones from our family cleaning up, but there were a few other people helping too. We got everything in the car and then we were DONE. 

It had been a big party, but Brandon loves this kind of stuff. Everyone told him it had been great. 

Other stuff

And now we will just have a random mish mash of other things that happened that week. 

- Veronica had an orthodontist appointment on Wednesday morning. She got elastics to help move her jaw. They are on her bottom canine teeth and connect to her top canine teeth. So she kind of looks like she has fangs when she smiles. 

- Wednesday was also the 7 year anniversary of living in this house. That's a big deal. I wanted to do something big to celebrate like go kayaking to Shoshone Falls. One of the kayak rental places offers a package where a boat takes you up the river to Pillar Falls and then you just have to kayak from there to Shoshone. It makes the trip a lot easier, but it's like $90 a person. So that wasn't really an option this year. Really it's not an option any August. I need to remember that back to school shopping is EXPENSIVE. 

Also we were all busy with Seussical. So we just met up at the theatre and took a picture. Derrick was in a bad mood and the picture with him in it looks like a hostage situation. So here's the one without Derrick. 

- Derrick was mourning the loss of income from his summer job ending so I put our on ward facebook page that he was willing to work for some money. I said he could pull weeds, mow lawns, move rocks, and do other yard work. My friend Nicole asked him to come mow her lawn. So on Saturday I helped drive the lawn mower over there and Derrick mowed her front and back yard. He was really happy to have money. She asked him to do it two more Saturdays. 

- On Sunday our Relief Society lesson was on a talk by President Christofferson. Our teacher wanted to start with some background about him. She said that when he was out of law school he clerked for a judge named John Sirica. She asked if anyone knew who that was. And out of everyone in the room - which includes a lot of people who were actually alive during the 70's - I was the ONLY one who raised their hand.

The teacher said, "Oh only Valerie knows about this?"  And I said, "I'm literally reading about this right now." The teacher wanted me to explain who he was and I was like, "Well I'm not that far in the book yet, but it's Watergate. He was the judge in Watergate." 

I'm currently reading "All the Presidents Men" about how the Washington Post investigated the Watergate break in. I'm not to the Sirica part yet, but the book starts with a list of the prominent people in the story. I'm CONSTANTLY flipping back to that page to remind myself of who the different people are. And John Sirica's name is there as "The Judge."  So that's how I knew the answer to a random question in Relief Society. 

- On Sunday afternoon we had Jori's family over for dinner. We had a TON of leftover pulled pork so we had that as well as some other food. Brandon got into a really good mood and ended up telling "Grandpa Stories."  It was like we were at our own private stand up comedy show. He was so funny. Jori and Tim were laughing so hard at the stories. 

Remaining Pictures

And here is a collection of the rest of the pictures from this week that I haven't shared yet. 

Lydia spent the last few days of summer vacation painting a lot. Here's a painting of a flooded city. 

Here she is posing with it. 

And here's is a mountain beach scene. 

I am still attempting to figure out my Seussical hair. Here I am with something of a flip as well as a big poof. 

I'm still working out the exact process, but I'm getting closer. 

And I'm not sure if I've shared this yet. This is the bathtub for Seussical. Brandon cut it out and the twins painted it. We took it to the theatre this Tuesday and when the girls brought it on stage I heard someone say, "Ohh look at that." It's really cute. 

And that is the disjointed recap about my week. 

Thanks for reading!

Summer Vacation 2026 - Week 12 - Seussical Week 7 - Last full week of summer

Well we've made it to the end of the summer. AKA when we are all running out of ideas for activities and we are trying to get back to a normal sleep schedule. 

Seussical continued to be a dominating factor in the schedule. I was at the Orpheum nearly every day that week. 

Let's recap!

Monday starting off with Brandon and I dropping off my blue van for some repairs. A few weeks ago it started making a humming sound when I pushed on the brakes. I thought it was the brake pads and had Brandon check it out. However, it was the CV joint. Brandon was like, "Nope, not doing that." Apparently it's like a 3 hour repair - and that's WITH experience. 

So then we had to figure out a mechanic. In the 7 years we've lived here we've only had to take the car to a mechanic once. I liked where we went before, but I was also interested in finding another place too. Our other cars have a list of repairs that will need expert help so we wanted to find someone who may be able to help with those things. 

So I asked in one of the theatre group chats if anyone knew of a good mechanic. My friend Joe recommended a place called Integrity Auto. Brandon called them up and made the appointment. And then my car stopped making the weird sound. It's like it knew we had an appointment scheduled. 

But Brandon told me that it was probably a sign that the bearing was wearing out more. So we went ahead with the appointment. 

The shop was near our house so I really could have dropped it off and then walked home. Or even had one of the twins drive a car and take me home after dropping the blue van off. But Brandon wanted to come so he could get a vibe for the place and see if he wanted to bring the other cars here. So he stayed home from for for an hour and we took the car over together. 

The guy we dropped it off with was really cool and it felt like the van was in good hands. Brandon took me home and then drove the grey van to work. 

Work was good. 

In the evening our new across the street neighbor had invited us for dinner and Family Home Evening. At first it had been a blanket invitation and I'd been like, "Oh I don't think we'll be available until we are done with our play." But then she had got specific about the date and asked me if August 10th worked. And I was surprised to see that it did. It was basically the last day we weren't called. So she did a good job picking that date. 

Our new neighbors are name Grace and Jim. Grace is from the Philippines and Jim is American. They are also LDS which is sadly how we met them. (We were super busy when they were moving in so we didn't have a chance to just go across the street and introduce ourselves.)

Grace is very nice, but she has made a lot of assumptions about me based on the fact that she met me at church. One of those assumptions is that our family has traditional Family Home Evening. At first she was like, "maybe we can come over for Family Home Evening at your house."  And I was like, "ummmmmmmmmmm."  My family is more of a sit around and laugh type of Family Home Evening family. We don't do anything formal and we certainly don't schedule it for Monday nights.

Grace wanted us to come over for dinner AND Family Home Evening. So my kids were in for a kind of culture shock. Really going to dinner at someone's house was a pretty big shock itself. Aside from Jori we haven't had dinner at anyone besides family's house - like ever. And this was a sit down affair with place settings - not a buffet. My kids were like "what."

And then we had Family Home Evening. The kids were so weirded out by singing a song together. And then Grace asked Brandon to share a scripture from his mission. He was like, "Okaaaaaaay."

But after that we played a game and that was fun. If you messed up in the game you had to put baby powder on your nose. The kids were unsure about that at first, but they realized it was funny pretty quick. Derrick was especially silly. It was fun to see him learn a game in real time. 

It was really fun, but when it was over my kids still said that they prefer our type of family home evening.  

The girls painted the helicopter that Brandon made for Seussical. I thought I had a picture, but I don't. It's really cute though. 

That evening I finally finished the 600+ page book Personal History by Katharine Graham about her life - and specifically about her involvement with the Washington Post. This was long book, but it was never boring. Her life was fascinating. I felt a little like I was saying goodbye to a friend when I finished the book. 

Tuesday started out with a dentist appointment for Derrick. This had been scheduled for Monday, but then the staff realized that it wasn't 366 days since his last appointment and insurance wouldn't cover it. So we moved it over one day. That meant we weren't scheduled with our regular dentist. Instead we were with my friend Sam. It's always funny when we get Sam because the staff will walk in and introduce him and I'm like, "HEY SAM!" as they are saying, "This is Dr Upton." They also try to introduce us to Dr Berg who the kids have seen since 2019 so it's just kind of a silly office policy all around. 

Sam was in Guys and Dolls with Brandon and is married to Casey who has been in a few more shows with Brandon. So we always talk about shows when we see each other. He wants to come see Seussical. 

At 12:00 I was at work for Admin Meeting. But I didn't stay long after it was over. 

In the evening we all had rehearsal. This was our last time on the 3rd floor. We would be moving to the stage on Wednesday. The Orpheum was hopping that night. Seussical was rehearsing on the 3rd floor, Young Frankenstein was rehearsing on the 2nd floor. And Newsies was having their cast party in the theatre. 

Brandon had got with our friend Cort to design the metal base of the tree that Horton needs to sit in. The plan is to make the tree out of steel and then cover it in brown paper so that it looks like a flimsy tree. But it will secretly be very strong. 

Brandon brought the design to get approval from the creative team. He also brought Derrick. Derrick was feeling a little bated and switched. Brandon had told them they were going to Lowes - which they were - but they made a quick stop at the Orpheum first. Derrick looked really uncomfortable so I took him on a tour of the place. He liked that. And then they left and went to Lowes. 

We worked on blocking a lot of Who scenes for Act 2. I always like when the scenes start with nothing and by the end we know where to stand and what to do. 

Wednesday was the last day of work for the kids at the berry farm. They all got their final pay checks. Charlotte and Lydia probably wont come back next year because they will be 16 and it will be easier for them to get jobs other places. But I think Derrick will be back. He never missed a week this year. There was one day he called home and left early. But other that than he was there the whole summer. 

I had a dentist appointment to get a cavity filled so I went over to the dentist office for that. And then I went to work at Aspen Grove. 

After work I took Derrick and Charlotte to the bank to cash their checks. Lydia was in the middle of recording the voice over for her online PE final presentation so she didn't come. On the way there Charlotte was asking about a bank account. She's recently reached $500 in savings so it seemed like a good time for a bank account. 

So we decided to do that paperwork and get her an account rather than just cash her check. It took about 20 minutes, and Derrick was not expecting that, but he was very patient. At one point we realized we needed Charlotte's social security number. So I called home and asked Lydia to find where I keep those and read the number to me. 

Charlotte walked out with a checking account, a savings account, and a debit card. I told her, "when I was your age debit cards were just barely becoming a thing." 

Our van was done so Brandon and I went to pick it up. But first I showed Charlotte how I moved the money from my savings account to the checking. I was explaining that checking is like a digital wallet and savings is like a safe. 

The van was NOT cheap. Worth it, but not cheap. I'm glad we had the money in savings for it though. 

At 5:00 Brandon took the kids to the church where they met up with the rest of our ward and then carpooled to the country club in the canyon for our stake's Back to School Bash for all the youth. Some of my kids were more reluctant that others to attend, but I was like, "You are all going!"  So they all went. 

I spent the free time to myself working on my Zephaniah lesson plan. (Not to be confused with Zechariah which is two books away.)  As usually I ended up with a bunch of open books around me. 

We weren't called until 8:00 so Brandon had the kids home by 7:30 and they all changed out of swimming suits and back into regular clothes. They all had a good time. (I resisted the urge to say I told you so.)

At 8:00 me and the girls were at the theatre. It was our first night on stage. We blocked some of  last few scenes of the show. And then practiced those a few times. 

The scene is the Jungle trial when the Kangaroo puts Horton the Elephant on trial for talking to a speck and sitting on an egg. It's a frantic scene with the jungle citizens singing "Boil it" and the Whos yelling "We are here!"  It's one of the only scenes where everyone in the cast is on stage. It took a lot just to get everyone in all the right positions. 

Mostly Veronica and I are standing on a platform reacting to things. Veronica is really reacting. At one break my friend Andrea was saying, "I'm worried I'm reacting too big." I told her, "Well Veronica is literally shaking me by the shoulders and one point. So I think your fine."

I've basically become a prop for Veronica in some scenes. She loves any chance to interact with me. At one point in the first song there's a music cue similar to psycho. Veronica literally pretends to stab me with a knife.  This week I decided that I'm not Veronica's mom in this show - I'm her sister. It explains why she seems to be teasing me so much in this show. 

We got home from rehearsal around 10:00. We all commented on how long that day felt. Charlotte was like, "Did I get a bank account today?"

Thursday was another busy day. Charlotte and Lydia were babysitting my friend Shaylee's four kids at their house for several hours. 

I had to run back to the dentist. The filling was just a little too high so I had him grind that down. 

Then I was at Chattertown for an hour followed by Aspen Grove for 3 hours. 

After work Derrick and I went grocery shopping. We ran into Sam again. That was funny. 

Brandon was at CSI so he wasn't home that night. 

For rehearsal we blocked the rest of Act 2 and we were like, "Wow! We have a show!"  It still needs a lot of work, but to be fully blocked at this point is incredible. 

We ran all of Act 2 after we were done blocking. At this point in the process we sit in the audience until its our turn to be on stage. Andrea has only ever done one Orpheum show and it was Godspell where she was on stage basically the whole time. So she didn't know how that worked. I told her, "We just sit out here and watch until it's time to be back stage."  Veronica also didn't know that. I guess the Ovation plays are so quick they just keep everyone back stage so they know where to stand and what to do when they aren't on stage. 

Friday was really like Monday part 5. This week had been so long. 

I had work in the morning. 

After work I finally took Lydia to the bank to cash her check. She has a lot of money too, but she didn't want a bank account yet. She's not at $500 yet and I guess that's our new requirement. 

Charlotte came with and deposited a lot of her money. (She hadn't had it with her on Wednesday.) After we were done with the bank I helped her get into her mobile banking account and showed her how to transfer money between checking and savings. 

Then we went to Smiths and she bought something with her debit card for the first time. After that she said, "I am NEVER going back to cash. That was so easy!" She loved that she didn't have to pull out all her money and then shove the change back in. 

That evening I had a meeting with Jared at the Orpheum. It was about song licensing for the Theatre Gala of the Magic Valley. Heather from the committee came with me too. Singing songs from the shows is basically everyone's favorite part from the Curtain Call Awards and so we want to keep that in place. but we HAVE to make sure everything is on the up and up with getting the song rights. So Jared put together a whole document on the ins and outs of doing that. 

By the end of the meeting Heather was like, "This sounds hard."  But I was getting weirdly excited about it. I told Heather and Jared, "this sounds like a cool challenge."  They both looked at me like I was crazy. I told them. "Look, I work with insurance companies for my job. This sounds like the hoops I have to go through to get claims paid, but this is more fun because it ends with everyone singing and happy."  Later Jared said something like, "Well, Valerie is used to fighting giants."

Around 7:30 Jori and her kids came over so we could make smores. The weather had finally dropped from the super high 90s. Thursday had been in the 70s all day. Friday had been in the 80s but it cooled down fast. So I wanted to do a little fire. I didn't have the energy for a whole thing with lots of people, but I always have energy for Jori. 

She and her girls had a lot of fun. All 4 girls ended up playing Derrick's Jurassic World Evolution 3 game. They thought the sleeping dinosaurs were super cute. (Derrick doesn't turn on the escape features for the game so it really is just like making a cute dinosaur zoo where nothing bad happens.)

And Jori had fun with all my girls talking her ear off. They LOVE Jori so much.

On Saturday I was in low power mode. I did some yard work, but not much. My biggest accomplishment on Saturday was actually my friend Haley's acccomplishment. 

Haley is in my ward and for a while has been talking about maybe auditioning for a play, "some day."  She used to do theatre in High School, but hasn't done it for 12 years. I was like, "Girl, that is the story for like half the people in the community theater here in Twin Falls. You should be in a show. Don't let the 12 year break stop you."

So I kept gently suggesting and sending audition information. And she decided to audition for Frozen. The show will happen in December and my family doesn't do December shows so I wasn't going to audition, but I told her I would go with her for moral support. And actually, I would drive her so she didn't have to worry about parking when she was nervous. 

So on Monday at 10:00 I picked her up and took her to the Orpheum. I showed her the staircase that led up to the 2nd floor. It can be a little confusing to find that staircase because it's next to the Orpheum. She was glad I was there. 

When we got to the second floor I introduced her to Marianne who would take her measurements. They like to get the measurements of everyone who auditions so they don't have to track them down after the show is cast. 

Emily who is married to Jared and runs Ovation was there with her daughter Lyla for her audition. And my friend/former dance partner Paul came out of his audition almost as soon as we got there. Everyone was so friendly and encouraging of each other. I was hoping that Haley would pick up on the vibes of how this is a safe place. I'd kept telling her, "The directors aren't here to be mean. They are cheering you on."

She went into the classroom and sang her song, read lines, and did her dance. I was trying to offer my service of talking loudly outside the door, but Marianne had enlisted me in helping her measure someone so I was a little busy. I could hear Haley and she sounded great!

She came out feeling so much better because it was finally over. But she said she'd felt like she didn't do her best. That bothered her. 

I dropped her off at home and explained that if she didn't make it she wouldn't hear anything. But if she did she would get a phone call. 

That evening she texted me and told me she'd made it into the ensemble. That was a HUGE deal. Over 80 people auditioned and they could only cast 45 tops. They ended up casting about 30. So to make it into the ensemble was a big deal. I'm so proud of her. 

And later that weekend the cast list would come out. Andrea and her husband Jeremy were cast as the Queen and King. Jeremy hasn't done any plays so this is going to be really fun for him. Andrea said he had so much fun with his audition. He wore a wig and sang Meatloaf's "I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that." Men need places they can play and have fun and so this is going to be a great experience for him. 

So that's why my biggest accomplishment of the day was really my friend Haley's. 

Monday's episode of Baconsale had been about pizza toppings and based on that episode I'd been dreaming of making a bacon and jalapeno pizza. So I made one for dinner that night. I also added pinapple. The jalapenos were from my garden.

We've had a dead tree all year and I super sad about it and have been ignoring it. But I knew we had to get it down eventually. So when Derrick looked bored in the afternoon I was like, "Hey do you want to chop down the dead tree?"  He loved that idea. Brandon got him safety goggles and Derrick grabbed tha ax and chopped down the tree. We spent some time trying to cut the roots with a pick-ax, but ultimately decided to just chop the tree below the surface and cover it with soil. 

Then we transplanted a maple that had been growing in a pot that our friend Suzy gave us before she moved. It started raining almost as soon as we were done with the tree so I didn't get a picture until the next day. So far it seems to have survived the transplant. 

On Sunday I worked on scheduling guest posts for the Exponent. We had 5 this week. 

Then I worked on testing out my hair style for the play. I tried curling my hair with my old reliable hot curlers. I got one little flip! Now that I know it can be done I'm going to try some more tricks to get this everywhere. 

I also went and wandered around my yard. I have tomatoe plants that are taller than me. 

 And I have so many raspberries getting ripe. 

And black berries. 

I went to sacrament meeting with the family, but I had to dodge out of there afterward because I had a Theatre Gala Committee Meeting at 3:00. It was such a good meeting. Everyone is so committed to making this event work. It's in January so we have 5 months left. We've pretty much transitioned from "Oh no, the Curtain Calls ended, what are we going to do?"  To "Okay, we know what we want our show to look like, how are we going to make it happen."  It's exciting work. 

In the evening we watched the 1993 version of the Three Musketeers. Why that movie?  Well the Magic Valley Rep just announced that they are doing a play of The Three Musketeers in June 2027. I'd thought we were going to take a year break from the theatre. But I guess it's only going to be a 6 month break because I really want Brandon to be in that. It's written by our friend Ivan who wrote the Treasure Island play that Brandon had so much fun in. So of course he should do this show. 

And that was the end of our week. But thankfully it wasn't quite the end of summer vacation yet. We have a Thursday start this year so there were three more days of freedom. 

Thanks for reading. 

Summer Vacation 2026 - Week 11 - Seussical Week 6 - The airplane starts landing

Its August and the kids start school in a few weeks. I can definitely feel the summer starting to wind down and the school year start to get primed. I'm looking forward to school so that I don't feel like I am the sole source of providing enrichment for the kids. But I'm not looking forward to school because I'm not ready to be in charge of making sure 4 people leave the house by 8:30. 

This week was pretty chill. It's kind of nice that we have Seussical taking up so much of our energy because I don't feel a ton of pressure to make the end of summer AMAZING. I'm just focusing on making sure we can start school and do this play without going crazy. 

So here's the recap for the week. It will cover from Monday August 3 to Sunday August 9.

Monday was my 6 month check up for my vitiligo. Part of me was like, "Why bother? I've been dealing with freaking hives for 4 months. Who cares about the vitiligo?" Also I hadn't seen much progress with my medicine. (Partly because I was so focused on the hives I didn't use the medicine regularly.) I went anyway.  

And thank goodness for before and after pictures because guess what?  The medicine is working!!!! It's not doing anything for my face which is where I keep focusing, but my chest has actually improved from this time last year. That was so encouraging to see. My dermatologist told me to start using the cream on my arms. And I've been super diligent about that. I *think* I'm already seeing improvement and it's barely been a week. 

I went to work after my appointment. It was a good morning. I was in a really good mood. Which was kind of bad timing because most everyone else was still in a somber mood about the shooting. And yes, I know the shooting was a big deal and all that, but I had NEW PIGMENT and so I was in a great mood. 

When I got home Derrick and I went to the store so we could buy pringles and ice cream and chocolate shell. Derrick had watched a Youtube video about putting ice cream in a pringles can and he wanted to try it. I was like, "sure!"  I like doing things that he sees on youtube because it's fun for him and really doesn't take much trouble.

After we bought the things we took the chips out of the can and washed it out. Then Derrick scooped ice cream into the tube and tamped it down. (Hello fine motor skills work.) 

Then he carefully cut holes in the can and put popsicle sticks into the ice cream. (More fine motor skill training)

Here's the finished thing. He put this into the freezer for an hour and I took a nap. 

When I woke up we cut the tub/icecream into circles. This was kind of tricky and very messy so there aren't any pictures. Everyone got a circle and could dip it into the chocolate shell. 

And that was Derrick's latest food adventure inspired by Youtube. 

Veronica had been working on a lego recreation of the Jurassic World Ride at Universal Studios. 

It was so cute!

That night Charlotte and Lydia went to rehearsal. They were blocking Jungle Scenes. We joke that Thing 1 and Thing 2 are pan-dimensional beings because they hop between the Jungle and Whoville with no problem. 

Veronica and I read Harry Potter 5. My goal is to be done with that book before school starts on the 20th. 

On Tuesday I was supposed to have my scripture study group for Zephaniah (Not to be confused with Zechariah which is scheduled for October.) But when I'd read through it a few weeks earlier I hadn't really seen anything that I was excited to study with the group. So I cancelled the study group in favor of doing a project with the kids. 

The project was going through all their school papers and saving what they wanted to keep. I had piles of papers from this year, last year, and possibly the year before that. So I had each kid sit down with me and we went through their papers. Veronica hadn't even cleaned out her backpack from 6th grade yet. She went through her backpack and threw a lot away. She said, "There's a lot of trauma in all those notebooks."  Mostly we saved fun art things for each of the kids. 

I didn't have work at all that day so we worked on the project most of the day. 

Here are the kids showing off the finished books at the end of the day. 

At one point we'd paused work so Veronica and I could run over to the middle school for registration. We picked up her schedule. She was a little disappointed in it. She was hoping to be in drama this semester, but it's not until next semester. And she was hoping for Art, but she was put into Family and Consumer Sciences instead. She's still in orchestra so that is good. 

I had only skimmed the welcome email so I'd totally missed that in paragraph 6 they announced that all the kids get lockers this year because they won't be allowed to have backpacks this year. Kerri told me about that later. So we'll need to go back next week and teach Veronica how to open her locker. 

That night me and the twins were at the theatre for rehearsal. Veronica had something of a migraine all day so she stayed home. We were blocking the scene where the play switches from Horton Hears a Who to Horton Hatches an Egg. He get's distracted from the clover field by a bird named Mazie who convinces him to sit on her nest so she can have a vacation. The who's aren't in that scene. But we were in the next one when we come on stage for the big number at the end of Act 1. 

It was really fun to see the two scenes come together. I liked watching Nate direct everyone. And Charlotte and Lydia had a lot going on. They were in charge of bringing out the tree for Mazie. They held a piano for the cat. They moved the cloverfield. They brought out a leaf and a snowflake to signify the seasons changing, they were hunters that found Horton. They have quite a lot to do.

When it was time for the Who blocking I held up my hand to represent where Veronica would stand. That was funny. 

On Wednesday I ran a bunch of different errands in the morning. 

Errand 1. I took Derrick and Charlotte to the Berry Farm. Lydia wasn't in the mood to get up in the morning and I figured that this was one of those decisions that wasn't right or wrong and she could just make her own decision. Later she felt a little silly about not going. 

Errand 2. I took Veronica to my friend Megan's house to feed her son Ty's bearded dragon while they were out of town. 

Errand 3. I went to Castle Therapy and picked up my July paycheck and filed all my July things. This took like 10 minutes because Ivan only has like 5 insurance clients anymore.

Errand 4. I took Veronica and Lydia to Hobby Lobby so Lydia could get more yellow paint for the set and Veronica could get a note book.  

Errand 5. I picked up the kids from the berry farm and took them to the bank to cash their July pay checks. Lydia came along too and Derrick was nice and got her check so that she didn't have to go get it and say why she hadn't been at work. 

Charlotte had quite a bit of money. She'd picked up something like 5 extra shifts trimming garlic. Plus she'd been paid for watching Candice's animals. Plus she hadn't spent all her other money yet. So when she counted it all up she had $520. 

Derrick had been eagerly anticipating his pay check. We immediately ordered two lego sets from Walmart. One would be mailed to us, but the other was ready for pickup that afternoon. I picked it up after work and he went right to work on it. 

While he was working on that Veronica and I were going through our rehearsal music. I had the rehearsal tracks on my phone. We had the music book with us and we were singing along. It was really fun. Derrick was loving working on his legos and listening to us. 

Here's his finished mosasaur lego and a little boat. 

Derrick loved hearing about the play. We told him that at one point the Cat in the Hat sneezes on the clover. He laughed and said, "I want to see that."  This was big news. He's been refusing to see anything at the Orpheum for a while. I'm still not confident enough to buy him a ticket, but we are going to let him sit in on a rehearsal during tech week. 

That night at rehearsal we were all there. We ran through all of Act 1. All the dialogue, all the songs, all the dances. Things were sloppy and we still had our scripts open, but the show was there!  We had Act 1. That was a really good feeling. 

Thursday was kind of a lazy day for me. I got all the watering done, but I didn't go grocery shopping. 

I took pictures while watering. You can see we still have hazy skies from fires. 

It makes the mornings look kind of eerie. 

I mentioned this fountain in my last post, but I didn't take a picture of it. I used to have this fountain buried in a flowerpot, but the flowers around it got too big and the solar panels didn't get enough sun. So I moved it into a very sunny spot and I love it there. 

I met up with Andrea for billing stuff at 11:00. Neither of us had motivation to do any billing, but we actually got some things done - miraculously. 

Then I went to Aspen Grove. Our newest clinician was scheduled to do some billing training with me. The main point of this training is really to show new clinicians that I'm not scary. I'm there to help them and they can ask me questions without worrying that I'll be mad at them. But this time the training was a little different because the new clinician is Veronica's therapist Rachel. We've known each other for like 3 and a half years. In some ways I felt like the point of this training was to show her that I'm actually a professional person. Veronica's appointments were always on Wednesdays which was my day off and I always showed up at her appointments in really casual outfits and then fell asleep on the lobby couch. So I wasn't exactly the picture of professionalism. 

I think Rachel enjoyed the training and probably left with her head spinning. That's the other point of these trainings - to show the therapists that the billing world is awful and they better appreciate my skills. 

After work I took Veronica grocery shopping. It was a relatively quick trip because we'd basically given up on dinner for the past week and didn't eat any of the "dinner" foods I'd brought the week before. So we just stalked up on my snacks and individual meals like gogurt, fruit, corn dogs, burritos, and things like that. 

Brandon was at CSI. This week and the week before had been weeks where he was there on both Tuesday and Thursdays. I hate these kinds of weeks because it feels like we don't see him at all. 

None of us had rehearsal. The twins worked on finishing the clover field set piece. This one wasn't as fun because it didn't have fun details or colors. Just lots of pink. I told the girls, "I vividly remember when my dad read me Horton Hears a Who and we turned the page and saw how big the clover field was. It was so daunting looking. This reminds me of that first time reading the book. 

Derrick had been poking around in the freezer and found the chicken patties I'd brought the week before. He was like, "Mom, let's have these for dinner."  So he took care of cooking them in the oven. And then I helped with making sure we had sliced pickles to go on them. It was like our first real meal since Sunday. 

Since we didn't have rehearsal and Brandon was at CSI I declared that I was going to watch a movie. I'd checked out The Post from the library weeks ago. It's about when the Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers. And since I'd FINALLY made it past that part in Katharine Graham's book "Personal History" I could FINALLY watch the movie. It was so good. Highly recommend it. 

Friday was Freshmen and Sophomore registration at the high school. I could have taken Charlotte, Lydia, AND Derrick all at once, but I really didn't want to do that. Last year the cafeteria had felt super crowded and noisy and I didn't want to deal with that with Derrick. So I'd already emailed his special ed teacher and she assured me that they would make sure Derrick had his picture taken on the make up picture day. 

So I went to work and then came home and picked up the twins. They had curled each other's hair the way that Hillary had taught them. They both wanted to look great since the picture they took that day would be their ID picture and their year book picture. 

We went to the school and went to the cafeteria which was not as crazy as I remember it from the year before. We picked up their schedules. Then we got into a line to pay for fees. 

I paid for them to have activity cards (It's required for Orchestra so Charlotte needed one, and it was easier to just also get one for Lydia rather than try to figure out if she really needed one.)

From the fee area we went into a line for pictures. And then from there we went into a line where they printed the ID cards. The whole thing was really quick and efficient. I was thinking, "Maybe I could have brought Derrick."

Next we went to the library picked up the girls' chrome books. We could have walked all around the school and found their classrooms, but the girls said they had it figured out. We just had to find a random hall where their history classes will be. 

Charlotte's electives are Orchestra all year and then Welding I this semester and Pottery next semester. 

Lydia's electives are Welding II all year and Art all year. 

They don't have any classes together and it doesn't look like they share many teachers either. 

When we got home I looked Derrick's schedule up on Powerschool. He has welding with Charlotte. Charlotte says that's going to be just fine for her. 

We joked that when Veronica gets to the high school it will be like the Sorting Hat in Harry Potter. Someone will say, "Oh another Illguth. I know just where to put you ---- Welding!"

I'm just fine with that. One of my mantras is, "AI can't weld."  These kids need some hands on trades. 

We needed to turn our head shots in for our program bios for Seussical. I'd been thinking that the ones we took a few weeks ago would work. But when I finally got those I was like, "Oh these are terrible." The lighting angles were just awful. So I was taking out own that weekend. I planned to do them on Sunday when we looked good for church. Charlotte said, "This is the best I've looked all summer, take my picture now." So I did. 

I went outside and discovered that my Dessert Willow had two little blooms. I was so proud of it. It's only two years old so I didn't expect anything until next year. 

I spent a lot of the evening weeding my garden. The chickens loved the weeds. I think all 8 birds are in this picture. 

That night was the last midnight swim at the pool for the summer. I made all the kids AND Brandon go. And wen it was over I made them take this picture. We didn't really say it, but this was probably our last time together at the pool. The kids all prefer Dierkies lake now. Derrick will still go to the pool during the week. But no one else is really interested. I'm sad about it because I feel like me and the pool were partners in raising these kids the last 6 years. It's sad to see this era end. But I know we will still have lots of fun together as a family other places. 

Saturday was kind of a weird day for me. I started out strong and got so much weeding done in the front yard. And then I just ran out of gas and didn't do much the rest of the day. 

We did end the day at Dierkies lake again. Brandon stayed home and worked on things in the garage. He'd been building a set Helicopter all day. I took the kid and read while they swam. 

On Sunday I tried to curl my hair with velcro rollers the way Hillary showed me. I succeeded in volume, but not in curl. But I'm getting there. 

Here's one of the pictures I took for my headshots. 

Veronica build more on the Jurassic park ride. Here's the line. There's a skeleton in there. He was in line so long he died. 

There's also the place where the boats came back. 

And a gift shop. 

She'd already put Derrick's Mosasaur to work in a tank. 

See. 

She really did a great job on this. 

Then the boats went into preditor cove. 

Here's the raptor cage. 

The escaped Indomonus rex

the raptor that comes down from the ceiling. 

And finally the big T-Rex at the end. 

Charlotte and Lydia curled each other's hair again. Here's Lydia's headshot.

And Veronica's.

Church was good. In Relief Society our teacher had us read from Luke about the two disciples that traveled to Emmaus with Jesus. She had the text of the scriptures up on the TV screen and then called on people to read from their scriptures. When she called on me I told everyone, "I have a different translation, don't panic."

So I read my part and then she asked, "can anyone look up how long three furlongs is?" Because that was the distance given in the KJV translation on the board. But then someone said, "Valerie's translation said it was 7 miles." I hadn't even realized that my NRSV gave the distance as miles instead of furlongs. I said, "That's why I switched to this translation, I couldn't understand the old English."

We had a nice afternoon at home after church. Brandon has been reading his story to the twins so they did that for a long time. And I wrote. 

And that gets us caught up for another week. 

Thanks for reading.